Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Small Businesses: Nottinghamshire

Ben Bradley: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many small and medium-sized businesses in Nottinghamshire have received support under each business support scheme operated by his Department since 2015.

Kelly Tolhurst: We want the UK to be the best place to start or grow a business and we are supporting SMEs to do so. As part of the Industrial Strategy we have an action plan to unlock over £20bn of investment in innovative and high potential businesses. As part of this, British Patient Capital – a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank – has been given resources of £2.5bn and will deliver a new programme designed to support UK businesses with high growth potential to access the long-term financing they need to scale up. We have also created a network of 38 Growth Hubs across England, and we are tackling late payments by appointing a Small Business Commissioner. Growth Hubs are a single point of contact providing SMEs with access to information and advice. The D2N2 Growth Hub - operating in the Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire area - has had 6,583 interactions with SMEs since its launch in December 2015. SMEs across the UK benefit from programmes operated by the Government-owned British Business Bank (BBB). BBB programmes are currently supporting £575.2m of finance for SMEs in the East Midlands Region, across 3,669 businesses. Also, as of 31 March through the BBB-owned Start-Up Loans programme, 779 loans have been made to individuals in Nottinghamshire, totalling £5.2m. The Business Support Helpline, Government’s free centralised business advice and support service, has received 432 contacts from the Nottinghamshire area since 2015. Since 2015/16 nearly 70 SMEs in the Nottinghamshire area have received Innovate UK funding in total and this includes some companies who are in receipt of multiple awards. Innovate UK is the UK’s innovation agency, driving productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas. UK businesses can access core services, information and guidance on starting up and running a business, as well as their statutory rights and obligations, on GOV.UK (https://www.gov.uk/set-up-business).